Daniel Everett: The Pirahã, Faith, Language & Chomsky

Daniel Everett trained as a missionary in field linguistics, in 1977 he and his family moved to Brazil to study Portuguese before moving to a Pirahã village in the Amazon lowlands so he could translate the Bible into their language and convert them to Christianity. He encountered a people who had no creation myth of their own, living only in the present with no interest in the distant past or future. People had come before with this message, not impressed by fiction the Pirahã could not understand why he and others were telling them about a person the storytellers had neither met or heard speak themselves and asked Daniel to stop speaking about this Jesus person. By 1982 Dan was having serious doubts about his belief, by 1985 he had lost his faith.

Through his study of the Pirahã language Everett began to have doubts about another of his mentors ideas. He claims Pirahã is a black swan in Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar, in particular universal recursion which the Pirahã seemingly do not use. Chomsky refuses to further discuss Everett's work, calling him a charlatan.

The ZIP includes three interviews with Daniel Everett from Philosophy Bites, Dr. Kiki's Science Hour and Think Atheist in which he talks about his time with the Pirahã, Language and his abandonment of religious faith.

Upcoming Documentary in 2012

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements Of Propaganda (2005)

On this original recording, Chomsky delivers a provocative lecture exemplary of the media analysis that is his signature. Arguing that “propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,” Chomsky sketches the triumphs of U.S. propaganda from the Wilson era through the first Bush administration.

Written in the wake of Gulf War I, this insightful lecture touches on the machinations of Bush Sr.’s war propaganda. As such, Media Control is a timely and haunting reminder of propaganda’s proven hazard: the repetition of our most nightmarish history.

The Imperial Presidency Sovereignty, Terror & The 'Second Superpower' (2005)

It's Noam Chomsky vs. the Bush Regime in this much-anticipated spoken-word release. Recorded in November 2004, just after the reelection of George W. Bush, Chomsky pinpoints the principle commitments of the current administration. In the name of expanding markets and controlling access to key natural resources, we've seen the blatant undermining of democratic practice, contempt for international law, restriction of civil liberties, and the use of State terrorism to further foreign policy objectives. This is not another cataloging of the offenses and blunders committed by George W. Bush, but a lively chronicle of the systematic power plays that have effectively wrenched power from ordinary people's hands and made the world an increasingly unstable place to inhabit.
"Political campaigns are designed by the same industries that sell toothpaste and cars. It's not an exaggeration they are run by the public relations industry... As for Bush's 'moral values,' there's an easy way to find out what they are: just read the business press the day after the election. It describes what is called the 'euphoria' in corporate boardrooms. And it's not because CEOs are opposed to gay marriage. If you want to learn more about Bush's moral values, just observe the principle [he follows], which is that costs are to be transferred to your children and your grandchildren...that's environmental costs, fiscal costs and the rest... The point of the PR industry is to prevent you from seeing anything as obvious as that." - from the CD

War Crimes & Imperial Fantasies (2004)

For more than a half-century, the United States and its leaders have been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of dominating and controlling international politics. Our elected leaders have been willing to follow the dream of dominance regardless of the cost. In War Crimes & Imperial Fantasies, Noam Chomsky talks to Alternative Radio's David Barsamian in Chomsky's MIT office about the history of the United State's perusal of imperialism and the crimes against humanity committed along the way.

Is George W. Bush and international criminal and is his war in Iraq an egregious criminal act? In this thorough, in-depth two-disc interview, Noam Chomsky (commonly referred to as "the conscience of the American people") carefully places Bush into a historical perspective, explaining Bush's actions in relation to past U.S. presidents and how the war in Iraq is in blatant disregard of the findings of the Nuremberg Tribunal. In this exposing interview, Chomsky recounts America's history of aggressive war, war crimes and murder while placing George Bush's Iraq invasion and occupancy into context. Just in time for Election Day, War Crimes & Imperial Fantasies is an exercise in American honesty and objective, factual criticism.

The Emerging Framework Of World Power (2003)

In a sweeping state-of-the-world address, America’s leading foreign policy critic surveys the role of the U.S. in a post-9-11 world—and finds nothing has changed. Ranging over American intervention in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America since WWII, Chomsky deftly sketches the logic behind our foreign policy, and its tragic results around the globe and at home. Whether it’s globalization, oil, or a monopoly on real terror, it’s business as usual, and we—not to mention the rest of the world—have to pay.

The New War On Terrorism Fact & Fiction (2002)

"The last time that the national territory of the United States was under attack, or for that matter, even threatened, was when the British burned down Washington in 1814. It was common to bring up Pearl Harbor but that's not a good analogy. The Japanese bombed military bases in two US colonies, not the national territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants in not a very pretty way...During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions of people, conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region, Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines, killing several hundred thousand Filipinos in the process. Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I don't need to describe. But it was always killing someone else. It was others who were getting slaughtered. Not here."
—Noam Chomsky, from the CD

An American Addiction (2001)

Columbia is now the 3rd largest recipient of US foreign & military aid, the justification for which is the War on Drugs. In a clear, concise and sometimes bitterly funny lecture, Noam Chomsky shows us who is getting the money, who is producing and exporting the drugs, and what the war on the ground is really about. In the ongoing debate over whether Columbia will become the 'next Vietnam,' Chomsky's analysis will provide a great introduction to the Columbian elite, the role of the US media, how 'development' works. Imagine Traffic starring Chomsky instead of Michael Douglas.

Case Studies In Hypocrisy: U.S. Human Rights Policy (2000)

With his inimitable penetrating analysis and dry wit, Chomsky leads us through the murky blood-soaked reality of America’s New World Order—whether it’s NAFTA, GATT, MAI and the WTO, or our relations with Palestine, Israel, Haiti and China. The second lecture of this two-part set focuses on the motives and consequences of US Iraq policy—a continuing example of murderous hypocrisy at its most lethal.

Propaganda & Control Of The Public Mind (1998)

"There’s no doubt that one of the major issues of twentieth century history, surely in the US, is corporate propaganda.... Its goal from the beginning, perfectly openly and consciously, was to ‘control the public mind,’ as they put it. The reason was that the public mind was seen as the greatest threat to the corporations."—Noam Chomsky

Free Market Fantasies: Capitalism In The Real World (1997)

Recorded at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 13, 1996.

For A Free Humanity: For Anarchy (1997)

A Double CD with Noam Chomsky and Chumbawamba.
Disc One comprises the Noam Chomsky lecture "Capital Rules"—another articulate and immediately accessible description of Corporate America's unrelenting attack on poor and working class people. From the attack on unions to the well-crafted business propaganda campaigns, Chomsky provides us with a clear picture of how US Capital is leading us down a path of a two-tiered society with islands of extreme wealth in a sea of poverty.


Just Chomsky's side here.

Prospects For Democracy (1995)

In this lecture, Chomsky presents his evaluation of the prospects for democracy in America in the New World Order. Beginning with a broad review of democratic theory and political history, he argues that classical democrats like Thomas Jefferson would be shocked at the disrepair of American democracy. He asserts that the enormous growth of corporate capitalism has already devastated democratic culture and government by concentrating power in the hands of the wealthy. Furthermore, that international trade agreements such as GATT and NAFTA threaten to further inflate corporate power and all but eliminate any public accountability.

Class War: The Attack On Working People (1995)

In perhaps the most potent of his speeches released on CD (this one recorded in 1995 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky frankly addresses the evident--but largely undiscussed--lines of class in American society, comparing, for example, American labor laws and practices with those of its global comrades. "The government," Chomsky says, quoting John Dewey, his favorite Democratic philosopher, "is the shadow cast by business over society." He bemoans corporate propaganda, the crushing of unions, and the "created wants" that have left us "a devastated peasant society.... People are scared, angry, and hostile." 

The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles (1994)

Chomsky walks his audience through the corporate forces that pushed for NAFTA, how the Clinton administration became uncompromising about its ratification in spite of its unpopularity with the American people, how the agreement hurts developing countries and American workers, and how Clinton's subservience to corporate interests belied the myth about Clinton and his so-called "New Vision" for the USA. Instead the "instruments of repression" flourished under Clinton as thousands of police officers were added, more prisons were built, chain gangs increased and as laws were changed to increase mandatory sentences to prison. In short, while the corporate sector received more freedom and less accountability, ordinary people received less freedom and more accountability under Clinton.